


Letters to a Child

by LinguistLove_24



Category: Reba (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, Multi, Relationship Advice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 07:37:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10826757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinguistLove_24/pseuds/LinguistLove_24
Summary: In the wee hours of the morning, Reba offers up some of her indispensable advice as her eldest comes to grips with her role as a new Mum.Non canon piece set as an extension to season one or early in season two after Elizabeth's arrival. One piece of dialogue from the first season whilst Cheyenne was still pregnant is used. It fit, so I referenced it.References to Van and Cheyenne's relationship, but this is centered around mother daughter relationships. Cheyenne/Reba Cheyenne/Elizabeth.





	Letters to a Child

**Author's Note:**

> First post to the 'Reba' fandom of AO3. Watched the show for years (even saw a taping once) and love it, but never got around to posting fiction for it. Recently re watched the early episodes, and this is what seemed to flow from beneath my fingertips. I hope you enjoy reading and I do hope to post more to this fandom now that I've had more time to write again and life hasn't gotten in the way of my creative flow. 
> 
> As always, if you have **constructive** comments or criticisms, I'd be more than appreciative. Any thoughtful discussions or comments that help me hone my craft or improve as a writer are things I welcome with open arms.
> 
> This has been proofed twice over before posting, but given the hour where I am and how exhausted my eyes are, I may have missed some things. Those errors are my own and I apologise should you find any! xx

**Letters to a Child**

 

 

 

**Three-oh-Five AM:**

 

 

Cheyenne Montgomery woke to the sounds of wails seemingly much too loud and large for the tiny person expelling them as she lay dissatisfied in the bottom of the crib situated across from her parents bed. This was not the first time Elizabeth had stirred in the night - the current evening alone had seen her roused an undetermined amount of times – Cheyenne had lost count after six. It had been a few months since her daughter's debut into the world, but for whatever reason, routine when it came to sleeping was something she refused to adhere to. She hoped that this wouldn't prove to be the case years into the future.

 

 

“Van,” the blonde said in a forceful whisper into the open space as her eyes adjusted to the dark and she made to roll over in attempt to face him. “Wake up.”

 

 

Allowing herself to fall gently back against the pillows, she ran her hands over her face, peeked at her husband afresh through spaces between slender, pale fingers. Van could sleep through anything. Always, she was the one to pick up on every little noise of displeasure her child made. Every shift of her tiny form saw her mother unconsciously shifting, too. Sometimes Cheyenne startled awake just to sit on the edge of the bed and watch from a distance, reassure herself that Elizabeth was, in fact, still alive and breathing.

 

 

Sighing heavily, knowing nothing she did would coax her husband awake, Cheyenne went through the motions of swinging her legs over the side of their bed and standing before making the few steps over to placate her dissatisfied child whose cries were now laced with intermittent bouts of hiccough.

 

 

“ _What_ is your problem tonight, missus?” Cheyenne cooed, ensuring the tone of her voice betrayed any hint of frustrations as she held the child close to her and rocked lightly. “You can't be hungry again.”

 

 

Craning her neck in the direction of the digital clock on Van's side of the bed behind her, she double checked the time the neon numbers flashed at her, staring a moment too long and allowing it to burn into her retinas before breaking concentration. It hadn't been long enough since her last feeding for the infant to be hungry, and allowing her hand to flit lightly across the child's diaper clad bottom she felt no evidence that she'd soiled it.

 

 

Not even placement in the crook of her mother's neck – with its ever-constant effusion of lemon and vanilla as they tangled together and coated her skin - was enough to bring a sense of peace or calm the tumult that was troubling her. These were the instances Cheyenne found herself most frustrated, nerves frayed and patience wearing thin, though she couldn't say so. More than the ungodly hours at which she found herself awake while her husband so often slept like a rock, more than all the things she'd had to sacrifice, more than the decision to brave teenage motherhood itself, the helplessness she felt at watching her baby cry until she was red in the face without the words to express to her mother how to fix it, the feeling she was screwing everything up, this is what ate at her the most. Tears often came when no one else was watching. 

 

 

Elizabeth seemed at that moment to show temporary mercy and take pity on those around her. Cries subsided briefly, Cheyenne able to discern the faintest of shuffling from downstairs in the kitchen as she stepped tentatively over the threshold of their bedroom door. Plates and cutlery clinked softly, feeble noises of things so incredibly ordinary mimicking the simplest of nature's songs in summer, reminding a young mother of a time when life was carefree and easy. Descending the stairs with offspring still cradled against flesh, she felt the rumble of a fresh bout of cries bubbling to the surface, spoke in attempt to stifle them.

 

 

“I think you woke Grandma.” Cheyenne's tongue played briefly through her teeth, lightest of laughs escaping. The first time, she realised, she'd laughed in a while. 

 

 

“Grandma's been awake for a while,” Reba drawled with a glint in her eye as her eldest child stopped in the kitchen jamb. Freckled hands submerged in foamy suds found their way to water's surface and were dried on a towel before the redhead made her way over to her granddaughter, wordlessly sought permission and reached out for her.

 

 

“Why're we bein' so fussy tonight, huh?” Reba said easily, holding Elizabeth slightly abreast to allow for eye contact. Reba's voice seemed to calm her almost instantly, something Cheyenne found herself jealous over more than she'd like to admit. 

 

 

“How do you do that?” The blonde was incredulous, as always, whilst witnessing it. “I'm up with her for hours a night and you can get her to settle in two seconds.” A pale hand raked through equally fair hair. “My own daughter hates me.”

 

 

Reba turned and made her way toward the kitchen table, Cheyenne following her lead and situating herself in a chair opposite her mother. “She doesn't hate you. You're her mother. You're already more bonded to her than anyone else could be.”

 

 

“Then why do I feel like I'm doing everything wrong?” A sadness pooled in her eyes as she looked across to her mother's lap and directly into her child's face. 

 

 

“Honey,” Reba said seriously. “Behind every great kid is a mother who's pretty sure she's screwin' it all up. You're not the first mother to go through this.”

 

 

“I know,” Cheyenne conceded. “I'm just... still figuring out how to grow up, you know?”

 

 

“Yeah,” her mother nodded almost imperceptibly. “I told you this wouldn't be easy, and growing into your new role as parents is somethin' you and Van are gonna have to figure out on your own. I can be there to help you navigate muddy waters, but I can't do it for ya. Finishing high school was the first step, and you did that.”

 

 

“Sometimes I just feel like a single parent,” Cheyenne said in exasperation. “Don't get me wrong, I love my husband, and I'm glad he's Elizabeth's Dad, but..”

 

 

“But?” Reba raised a quizzical brow, urging her daughter gently on.

 

 

“He hardly gets up with her. Sleeps like a rock. I get more frustrated trying to shake him awake sometimes than I do trying to figure out why Elizabeth is crying. I go to change or dress her and sometimes he just watches me, like he's afraid to mess up or that if he touches her she'll break.”

 

 

“Did you ever think maybe that's exactly what it is?” Reba's question was soft as she reached a free hand across the tabletop to cover one of her eldest.

 

 

“What?” Cheyenne asked, confused.

 

 

“Honey, all parents experience parenthood differently. Especially the first time, and especially fathers. Maybe Van isn't expressin' himself the same way as you, but he is feeling those emotions, frustrations, fears, just as much. He might not know how to express himself at all. 

 

 

“If you want to parent effectively, y'all're gonna have to do it together. He doesn't know what you need from him if you don't talk to him, and vice versa. Maybe he holds back from being so hands on because he thinks you're better at it than he is. Talk to him and let him know that you support him too and it's okay for both of you to make mistakes.”

 

 

“Thanks Mum,” Cheyenne muttered with a half smile. “Despite that I don't say so enough, I really appreciate how supportive you've been through all this. So thanks.” 

 

 

“You're welcome.” Reba squeezed the blonde's hand, patted it lightly before disconnecting it their grasp. “Despite that I may not tell  _you_ enough, I love ya. You're doin' okay. Your little family's gonna be just fine.”

 

 

“She's quiet,” Cheyenne nodded toward the bundle her mother was still holding against her. Young eyes were closed, long lashes splayed out and visible as they jutted from top lids. Tiny cheeks, blotched with colour from the exertion of wailing, were puffed out nearly twice their normal size. 

 

 

“Sometimes I miss you guys being this small,” Reba mused with a far away look. “They look so angelic while they sleep.”

 

 

“They do, don't they?” Cheyenne smiled. In that moment she knew the decision to keep her child, even while still being one herself, had been exactly the right one. All of what she had gone through, would continue to go through, none of it would convince her that these moments watching Elizabeth's sleeping form curled against her own mother, peaceful and untouchable, far off in the land of dreams, weren't worth every bit of strife or sacrifice.

 

 

_“This isn't gonna be the senior year you dreamed about, unless stretch marks and haemorrhoids were part of that dream...”_

 

 

Cheyenne smiled to herself and laughed involuntarily. The dry quip disguised as advice as only Reba could give it popped into her mind and it struck her just how much that time in her life already seemed as if it were a lifetime ago. It seemed as though nothing existed before her marriage to Van or the birth of their daughter. Things that once mattered seemed like they were part of a different world, and though existence within this one would prove much harder, incredibly stressful and exhausting, it was also incredibly beautiful. Unexpected moments such as these ones in the wee hours of the morning gave the young mother all the strength she needed to forge on.

 

 

“I wrote her letters,” Cheyenne murmured as she came back to the present and collected Elizabeth from Reba's arms – miraculously – without her stirring.

 

 

“What?” Reba asked as she peered down at the sleeping bundle. 

 

 

“Elizabeth,” she said. “I started writing letters not long after she was born. Once my sleep cycles shifted, there were so many moments I was awake with too many thoughts whirring around in my head. So much I want to say to her that she's too young yet to understand. So I started writing. I just scribble it all on pieces of notepaper and tuck them into an old shoebox in our room. Van doesn't even know.”

 

 

Reba felt her heart constrict. The consensus among people who knew her was that Cheyenne was more than a little rattle brained. They assumed her physical beauty kept her afloat. What they didn't see was the articulacy and compassion and maturity that so often bled through when it was least expected. Sometimes the redhead couldn't help but believe that keeping these qualities under wraps was intentional on her daughter's part.

 

 

“That's a really amazing and sweet idea, Cheyenne,” she piped up when she'd found her voice again, lump still lodged in her throat. Reba knew without a shadow of doubt that Cheyenne and Elizabeth would have problems and hurdles to climb together as she got older, made her way into her own teenage years. She also knew, that if she'd come to understand her oldest as well as she hoped she had, the content of what had started out as letters to a child would be more than effective at helping them through whatever lay ahead. 

 

 

“You should tell him.” That damned lump had seemed to grow bigger in Reba's throat as she watched her daughter turn in the kitchen doorway, stopping abruptly before making her way back upstairs for some much needed shut eye.

 

 

“Hmmm?” 

 

 

“Van,” Reba told her, the watery feeling that had lodged itself within her throat seemingly making its way upward and pooling in the depths of her eyes. “You should tell him... about the letters. They're for his child, too.”

 

 

“Yeah,” Cheyenne smiled. “Yeah. Maybe I will." 

 


End file.
